- I'm gonna tell you how to turn more of the people
that are watching your videos into subscribers.
And we're starting right now.
Today's question comes from Smokin' Joe's Pit BBQ.
Joe says, "Nick, first off,
thank you for helping me get to 50,000 subscribers."
Congratulations.
High five and fist bump to you
for crossing 50,000 subscribers, by the way.
But he continues to say, "I've implemented so much
of your advice that has helped my channel immensely.
My question is, 90% of my viewers
are not subscribed to my channel.
What are your best tips on turning those
non-subscribers into subscribers?
Thanks again, Joe."
Thank you for this question, Joe,
because this is something that I think
a lot of content creators are concerned about
or just something that they want to know.
Like the people that are coming in and watching my videos,
how to get more of those people to actually hit
the subscribe button and come in
and keep actually interacting
with what it is that I'm doing.
How do you do that?
Well, through all the things that I'm gonna talk about here,
the very top of the list, of course,
and Joe, you know this already
because you've been able to accumulate
50,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel.
But for everybody watching this,
the very first thing at the very top of the list, of course,
is to make sure that you're adding value
to the people that are watching your content.
And look, I know a lot of people are like,
okay, well, hey, what does that even mean?
Because value is interpreted in so many different ways.
Here's what I mean.
With every video you make,
it's important to think to yourself,
the person that's gonna be watching this video
after this video is complete,
what are they gonna get out of it?
Are they gonna learn something?
Are they gonna be entertained because you're funny?
Are they gonna think about something in a different way?
Are they gonna be inspired?
Are they gonna be motivated to take action on something
or to make some type of change in their life?
Or are you just helping them escape
from their day-to-day life?
A little bit of escapism while watching your content,
like what is it exactly that you provide
the viewers that are interacting with your content?
Define it.
After you define it, the next step is of course
spread awareness about that value
that you're bringing to your viewers.
You can do this through verbal or visual cues.
Here's what I mean.
When someone's watching your video,
the visual way that you can do it
is to literally express the value
that you offer through a graphic on the screen.
Now, this can be something that pops up down here,
or it can be a full screen graphic
that takes up the whole thing
and just lets people know what it is
that you're offering on the channel on a regular basis.
On the verbal side, it's a little bit different.
On the verbal side, you can do it in an interruptive way
to where you literally stop the entire video
in order to remind people to subscribe
or to let them know the value that you have.
For example, in my content,
sometimes, you'll see videos where I'll say
something along the lines of, "I'm Nick.
If you wanna learn how to grow your channel,
make videos, and all types of other YouTube-related stuff,
start now by subscribing and clicking the bell
so you don't miss anything."
When I do those, and it converts better
from a viewer to subscriber ratio, by the way,
but I take it out in a lot of cases
just because I respect your time as a viewer,
but I'm actually experimenting with it
back and forth right now.
I'm just as, you know, as an additional experiment,
'cause that's just what we gotta do here on YouTube.
But anyway, when you do it in an interruptive way like that,
like I mentioned in that little clip,
it takes away from the viewer's time, right?
It adds value in terms of letting them know
that you have more content like that,
or the exact value that they're gonna get
from watching your content.
However, it is pretty interruptive to your content,
even though it can be effective if you do it right.
If you're just getting started,
I recommend that you do not take that approach at all,
because it's easier to mess it up
than it is to get it right.
The second way to spread awareness,
which is not intrusive, is to casually mention
what it is that you offer on a regular basis
while you're just doing your content.
For example, in Joe's case,
while he's making his barbecue and he's showing people
how to make amazing barbecue,
one of the things that he can do
is while he's actually waiting for something to cook
or he's flipping something over,
doing something where he wouldn't normally be talking,
he can simply say something like, by the way,
if you want to learn the ins and outs
of making incredible barbecue, remember to subscribe.
It's non-intrusive, it's a mention in passing,
and the goal of that mention in passing
is just to simply remind people,
hey, you're enjoying this content.
Now's the time to subscribe, right?
You're bringing it to the top of their awareness
in that moment in time in your video.
That's the idea.
Doing this type of thing is called a call to action.
And the idea is that you are spreading awareness
about the value that you offer.
And then you're calling people to action
in terms of asking them
to subscribe to your YouTube channel.
The cool thing with calls to action
is that they are effective in everything.
Marketers use them, YouTubers use them,
TikTokers use them.
They use them in podcasts.
They use them on web pages.
Calls to action are the way that you give people a nudge
to take action on what it is that you're saying,
which in this case would be getting them
to subscribe to your YouTube channel.
The next thing that you wanna do
to increase the amount of subscribers that you're getting
if you're trying to give yourself every advantage possible
is to make sure that you set up your channel page
in a way that helps the people
that are interacting with your content
find the content that matters to them most
in the easiest way possible.
For example, if I watch a Smokin' Joe's Pit BBQ video,
and I'm like, wow, this is great.
I just learned how to make something
that I've been waiting to learn how to make for a while.
Or I love this person's personality
or whatever the thing is.
I wanna see what other content they have available.
I click on the username of Joe.
I click on his username,
and then I land on his channel page after I do that.
It doesn't matter if I'm doing this on a computer
or on a mobile device.
When I land on his channel page,
there's opportunity there for Joe
to convert me into a subscriber.
And you have the same exact opportunity
for your viewers as well.
When they land on your channel page,
simply put in your channel art the value that you offer.
So take all of the value that you offer
in your YouTube channel, condense it down
into a small phrase or a very small sentence.
It's called a value proposition that lets people know,
hey, this is what you're gonna get from me on this channel.
The win here, when you add this to your channel art,
is for those people that click on your username,
they land on your channel page
or somebody shares your content out,
they land on your channel page,
it spreads awareness to them right there in that moment
saying, I've got more content like this.
I've got more content that is exactly
the type of content that you just enjoyed.
So you're spreading awareness with that.
And in addition to that,
when you also structure your channel in a way
by adding playlists and then adding those playlists
as sections to your channel page,
you can see my channel pages an example of this,
when you add those sections of playlist in there,
you also start categorizing content
based on the things that people come to your channel for.
And the win there is that when they land
on your channel page and they start scrolling around
and clicking around looking for additional content
of yours to watch, you make it easy to funnel those people
into sets of content that matter most to them.
And if they haven't already subscribed
and you're making it easy for them to find more
of your content on your channel page that they care about,
then what's happening there is you're driving them
into more videos, and as they watch more videos,
that gets them more familiar with you
and what it is that you do,
which then increases your chance of earning them
as a subscriber right there on the spot,
but even better is what happens on the back end of YouTube.
If people come in and they watch more
than one video on your YouTube channel,
if people just keep watching videos on your channel,
then YouTube, even if they don't subscribe,
YouTube will show your content to them on their homepage.
It'll show it next to other videos
when they're watching other content.
And when that happens, if you didn't get a chance
to earn them as a subscriber during that session,
that's also an additional opportunity
to catch them at a later date
because they are enjoying your content.
So because of that,
even if they don't subscribe in that moment,
as long as they're enjoying your content, right?
Which goes back to the first thing
of making sure that you're adding that value,
but as long as they're enjoying your content,
YouTube detects that, then YouTube is gonna keep
showing them your videos if they're subscribed or not,
which is one of the many reasons that I love YouTube.
But the idea is to spread awareness,
'cause when somebody is watching a video,
they're engaged in the video.
They're like, hey, this is an awesome video.
They're not thinking like we do as YouTube content creators.
They're not thinking like, oh, hey,
I gotta make sure I subscribe here
and all this and other thing.
They don't know how YouTube works.
They don't know anything about it.
They're civilians.
So because of that, you have to make sure
that you're spreading the awareness about the value
that they're gonna get from what it is that you're doing.
And of course, you've gotta make sure
that you continue to just make awesome content
that your viewers enjoy so that it's worth subscribing to.
And so that as long as you're making that great content,
YouTube will also continue to bring in new viewers
that you can, in turn, convert into subscribers as well.
That's how your channel grows.
And as a quick heads up,
I do have a link in the description to tubertools.com,
which is my website, where you can get graphics
that will help remind people to subscribe as well.
But it's more important to me
that you click into this video right here.
That's gonna teach you more
about growing your YouTube channel.
Then you can check out tubertools.com later.
So click into that playlist now.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.